Lushnje

November 14, 2016

 Holy cow! I knew that it was going to be a big difference going from AP in Tirana to Senior Companion in Lushnje but I never could have predicted how different it feels! Pretty crazy week honestly but so far I'm just way happy, I think it's going to be an awesome last month! 

  So to start off last Monday I had my last FHE and man it was sad to say goodbye! Leaving T4 really felt like I was leaving the mission just because everyone was like we are going to miss you so much and all this stuff and I was just like jeez guys I'll still be around!!

  Transfer day was INSANE! There was a huge flash flood in Tirana and there was like a lake on the freeway and so tons of people were mega late! It was so interesting because normally all that stuff really stressed me out, like transfer stuff not going right and then there was just a bunch of chaos as always with people in the office and it would just make me super anxious but it was like all the stress was just gone, I no longer had the calling and I didn't have to worry anymore! I would have had to leave Tirana super fast and not say hi to a bunch of people but Lushnje actually got stuck and weren't able to come in to Tirana so I got to spend a bunch of time with all my homies going out to get lunch kinda a last hurrah it was a nice blessing! Then the APs drove me across the lake to meet up with my new comp, Clayton and we were off!

  We got to Lushnje and it didn't take me long to realize that we did not have much work that I was coming in to, like when I say not much I mean none. But hey I have done that twice now so I was like man this is exactly what I was made for! So we just hit the streets super hard for like 2 days I was just trying to be 110% positive and going hard and it really paid off! Those two days were kinda rough and I was like whew this might be a rough month of this but after them we had so many people to work with that we haven't contacted since then! It's awesome to see the Lord blessing us so fast!! Since getting here I just feel like an itch to work the heck out of this last month. Like I have always tried to work hard my whole mission of course but I don't know it's like I just want to make a big difference for this last area and put a nice little final stamp on my mission. I'm not going to lie after seeing such instant success coming into the area I definitely have been working on just staying super humble and always praying to thank God and reminding myself that it's all because of him it's not anything I do. It's still just so sad to me how hard it is to get rid of pride! It really hangs in there!

  After being in Lushnje for a few days (and a huge deep clean of the house) I realized that I just felt sooo at peace. Like nooo stress! No worrying about what calls were going to pop up during the day all I have to do is put my work in and I don't have to worry about anything else! Plus no traffic and constant horn honking. Needless to say the knots are working their way out of my shoulders. Also naps during the day are heavenly! I forgot how nice they are! I have gotten one almost every day since I've been here!

  As for the area it's awesome, it's like a really small city that's surrounded by villages and pretty much everyone here is a farmer! Lots of really humble people. We went and visited one of the members this week and their house was soo tiny like probably the poorest people I've ever visited it was crazy, but they pay for a ride to church every week! So much faith! The branch here is pretty awesome, we had 30 people at church on Sunday. We have four 16 year old young women that are super awesome members and no young men.

  We also had Zone Training this week and it was a lot of fun! I felt so old because there are no elders after my group so there is a big gap between me and the next group of elders. It was really good though, just a big spiritual pump up! It's weird though just because each zone training and mission conference I go to it seems like more and more of my friends are missing! AHH so many people I want to see when I get back.

Today we played soccer and went to an old mosque for pday!  My comp in Elder Clayton and he's from St. George.  Super fun kid!  We're going to work hard and have fun together!!

Anyway I'm doing awesome, hopefully we'll just be able to keep this good stuff going! Love you all!

Adam teaching a little girl in Lushnje

Pday soccer game!